In the field of agricultural scale indicators and load cells, there is a need to mix, blend, apply, or transport a variety of forage products (such as hay, corn, wheat, cotton seed, etc.). In certain applications, it is important to know the weight of certain materials, and it is also important to know the amount of materials that have been loaded onto or off of a scale. Scales are used as data management tools as well as material management tools to help the operator load or unload the correct amount of material and provide data to managers for record keeping. Certain conventional scale controls have a number of control buttons that must be pressed, in a particular order and at predetermined times, in order to ensure the proper operation of the scale and the carrier to which the scale is applied, and in order to ensure proper collection of the data as the material is being loaded, transported and unloaded. It is desirable to simplify the actions required by the operator to control a process, and to reliably record the transfer of material to or from the grain cart.
The scales and scale indicators described above are commonly used in conjunction with grain carts and other implements that load and unload bulk material. Grain carts are farm implements that are typically towed behind a tractor or other engine-driven vehicle and include a number of components. Farmers use grain carts to transport harvested grain from other implements, such as combines, and deliver the grain to trucks or other hauling devices away from the harvest field. The use of grain carts allows the harvester to remain in the field without having to return to a grain storage area to unload.
Grain carts typically include a storage carrier that further includes a hopper with a capacity ranging from several hundred to over one thousand bushels of grain. To unload the grain from the cart, grain carts employ a conveying device such as an auger or conveyor (“conveyor”) to draw grain from the bottom of the hopper and convey it through a chute that deposits the grain wherever it is needed. The conveyor transports grain from the base of the hopper upward so that it may be deposited into another container.
At the bottom of the hopper, where the conveyor meets the hopper, is typically a door that must be opened in order for grain to flow onto the conveyor. The door serves the important purpose of keeping the grain or other material in the hopper until the operator desires to remove the material, and also of allowing the conveyor to come up to speed while under minimal load before the grain is loaded onto the conveyor. To provide power to the conveyor, grain carts are typically driven by a Power Take-Off (“PTO”) driveshaft typically located at the rear end of a tractor. A PTO is typically powered by the tractor's engine.
Without a door separating the grain in the hopper from the conveyor, the conveyor would have to bear the entire weight of the grain present in the grain cart to begin conveying grain up the conveyor. Typical PTOs are not capable of generating the necessary torque to overcome such a load. In fact, if the conveyor is not up to the proper speed prior to opening of the door, the increased load may cause the PTO, or the engine driving the PTO, to stall, or other equipment to malfunction. To minimize the risk of stalling and malfunction, grain cart operators must be cognizant of their engine RPMs before starting the unloading process.
The current procedure for loading or unloading grain is complicated, involving a multitude of steps. As one specific example, using a Digi-Star Weigh Scale system to unload material already present in a carrier, where the display shows the current weight in the carrier includes the following steps: (1) the operator pressing the [Tare] button to zero-out the weight display, (2) the operator engaging the tractor PTO shaft to start the conveyor/auger, (3) the operator opening the hopper door to begin the grain flow, (4) when unloading is complete, the operator closing the hopper door, (5) the operator disengaging the PTO shaft to stop the conveyor/auger, (6) the operator pressing the [Print] button to save to a storage medium the amount that was off-loaded, and (7) the operator pressing the [Gross/Net] button, causing the display to show the weight of the materials remaining in the carrier.
This procedure is complicated, and is not easily explained or taught to an untrained, casual or part-time operator, and so a need exists for a simpler and more understandable scale control system. For example, there may be times when the operator forgets to press the [Tare] or [Print] key, causing the records reported to management to be inaccurate. The present invention provides an improvement over conventional operation of these scales.